Who wouldn’t want to save money, help the environment, and learn about a new tech toy at the same time? That’s what home automation systems are all about, according to Gary Wasserson. Here, Wasserson, who is the CEO and owner of Wasserson Design in Pennsylvania, explains how home automation systems are helping his clients cut costs and go green at the same time.
Installing an automated home system is a great way to save money on heating, cooling, and energy costs—especially for people who own a second home or a vacation residence.
Here at Wasserson Design, we are very much into the theory of the “green” home. That’s why we work so hard to help people design systems that will allow them to use less energy in their homes on a daily basis, thus saving both the environment and their wallet.
A great example of how you can save money by installing an automated home system has to do with vacation homes. Let’s say you own a home in Florida. Well, it would be costly to leave the air conditioning on all the time, especially if you only visit the home a handful of times each year. With an automated home system, however, you can automatically set the thermostat to stay at 80 degrees, or whatever level you choose, when you are in the residence or not. Then, on a weekend when you are flying down to stay at the home, all you need to do is get on your PDA or iPhone when you arrive at the airport on the way down and change the setting to 72 degrees.
Automation systems also feature alert services that notify you if your pipes are getting especially cold or if they are about to freeze. Because if you have a home in the Northeast and you haven’t been around to check on the pipes for three months or more, then there is a good chance that they could freeze and burst, which can cost you thousands of dollars to repair. Instead of letting that happen, homeowners with a home automation system can simply set up the notice, receive an alert when something is wrong with their pipes, and then turn on the heating system to warm things up if it gets too cold. Or you could notify a maintenance person in the local area to get over there and fix things before a real problem comes up and you have $300,000 worth of damage.
These systems aren’t just about saving people time and money; they are about helping homeowners go green and saving the environment, too. The ability for us to help homeowners moderate the amount of energy use is very much alive and well within the home automation systems, which is a big reason why a lot of homeowners are so interested in having these systems installed.
Of course, people with vacation homes aren’t the only ones who can save on energy use by installing a home automation system. Homeowners can use these systems to control all the HVAC, all the lights, and everything else in their day-to-day homes, as well.
I have a system like this installed in my own home, and I love it. When I go to bed at night, I have a remote control in my bedroom that gives me an on/off button to use for my lights all around the house. I have a three-level house, so if I left lights on in my basement then I just push a button and they all go off. To set this type of automated home system up, you just need to have some type of small remote control—you can even use an iPhone, an iPad, or even a touch pad from one of the various manufacturers who make these control systems.
What we have done at my company is we have taken the various technologies and turned them into one. Because I have multiple full-time programmers on staff, we have gone a step further than most companies, integrating different technologies together to get the greatest result for the lowest cost. Rather than having to use a particular remote control from a certain company that can cost $4,000 or more to control the system, for example, my clients can use their own iPhone or iPad to do the same thing for a fraction of the cost. So that is just another way that using an integrated home system like the one my company offers can actually save homeowners money.
